Talk:Weepers/@comment-149.159.125.109-20121012163318/@comment-75.36.164.158-20121231222245
Firstly, no, it is not a crime. We've been through this already, and its' getting a bit tedious. Self-defense and defense of nation and community against an irrational and violent figure is not a crime. Self-defense and defense of nation and community against a violently ill psychotic (even if of the most sympathetic kind) is not a crime. Self-defense and defense of nation and community against a plague carrier is not a crime. There is a reason why animals can and are summarily put down in contravention of normal animal cruelty laws in order to stop diseases. The same applies here. That doesn't mean it's "right" or morally clean. Just that it is not a crime. And yes, it is true that we can an do see Sokolov and Piero treating them in the Good/Low Chaos ending, and we do hear people as far back as Jessamine in the first game hoping for a cure. That indicates there was at least hope that things would get sorted out. *However*, that in no way means that people KNEW there would be a cure, or that it would come in time for the people of Gristol, Dunwall, and the Isles. Would we really indict some medieval German town guard for killing victims of the Black Death when there was a potential cure (albiet one several centuries later)? Of course not. This is Utopian Fallacy. Thirdly, the idea that it doesn't degrade them into animals is in fact true. However, this would not serve as a legal (as opposed to a moral) defense of not killing them, since whether they choose or not they clearly are uncontrollably hostile to most and unless contained will pose a threat to other innocent people unless killed and disposed of. And that is before we get into the "malignant" Weepers, those that have clearly chosen (as per The Heart) to willfully spread the Rat Plague of their own free will. These individuals aren't animals, they are TERRORISTS. No matter what people would find of other Weepers, there is no dispute that killing *those* is a Public Service. The fact that killing so many people is trying on the human psyche is not in itself a moral indictment. Finnish Machine Gunners fighting to defend their democracy against the ravages of the Soviet Union had to be removed due to becoming mentally disturbed at having to kill so many conscripts. Does that mean it was morally wrong for them to fight to save their nation against Communist totalitarianism? The fact that the Tall Boys have to be drugged to stay sane is not an indictment of the strategy any more than disease control specialists having to have psychiatic counseling from putting down diseased animals is a moral indictment of that method of disease control. The fact that the rats are the main cause of the plague's spread does not mean that killing the Weepers does not help stem the tide of the plague. The Weepers are just a secondary carrier, and while it would not stem the tide of the plague as much as exterminating the rat population would, that does not mean it would not stem the tide of the plague *at all.*